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FERNANDO BOTERO

Like the laugh I try to suppress every time I see a Botero piece, his work is very (a-hem)...hearty.

The above painting (left) is called Mona Lisa, Age 12. His original intent was actually NOT to portray Mona Lisa–the painting was of a 12-year-old Colombian girl. It was while he was living in New York in the 60s that a woman who was cleaning his apartment noted that she looked like Mona Lisa. It was then that he renamed it.

Squeezable, pudgy, fleshy and happy – his work at first glance is undeniably humorous. Beyond the obvious humor of it, however, is a commentary on Colombian society and politics. His inflated figures are satirical portraits of military, political, royal and religious figures.

Born in Medellín, Colombia in 1932, Botero began painting at an early age. It was a trip to Mexico to study the work of Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco that deeply influenced his painting style.

In 2005, out of disgust for the circumstances at Abu Ghraib prison, he completed a series of 50 oil paintings that depict the prison and its captives.

He has said "I, like everyone else, was shocked by the barbarity, especially because the United States is supposed to be this model of compassion...No one would have ever remembered the horrors of Guernica if not for the painting. "

See part of the series here.

See more of Botero's previous work here.